Lyman-alpha emission as a tool to study high redshift damped systems

We report a quantitative study of the escape of Lyman-alpha photons from an inhomogeneous optically thick medium that mimics the structure of damped Lyman-alpha absorbers. Modeling the optically thick disk with 3 components (massive stars and HII regions, dust, and neutral hydrogen), we study the resulting emission line profile that may arise near the extended damped absorption profile.